SK Hynix employee sentenced to 18 months for leaking chip secrets

SK Hynix trade secret theft CMOS image sensor semiconductor technology industrial espionage

A former SK Hynix employee has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaking CMOS image sensor (CIS) technology and trade secrets to a Chinese company. The Seoul High Court upheld the original sentence, maintaining the defendant's conviction for violating the Industrial Technology Protection Act, the Unfair Competition Prevention Act, and breach of trust.

The employee, who worked at SK Hynix's Chinese subsidiary, stole confidential materials by printing documents and taking photographs of files from the company's internal management system. These materials were used in a job application to secure employment with a Chinese firm, specifically after receiving offers from entities such as HiSilicon, a subsidiary of Huawei.

While the defendant was convicted for the leak of CIS technology, the court found him not guilty regarding the theft of hybrid bonding technology used for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), stating the specific data did not meet the legal threshold for